GUARD IS FEELING NAVY-MARINE CORPS PAIN

Brig. Gen. Matthew Beevers, assistant adjutant general of the California National Guard, scanned the room of hundreds of military and defense industry personnel in San Diego. “Any soldiers here?” he asked with joking desperation.

After he was heckled for being an “Army of One” in this predominantly Navy-Marine Corps town, Beevers told the San Diego Military Advisory Council last week about his citizen soldiers and airmen operating throughout the county, and the world.

One thing the state force and its active-duty partners have in common with the sea services? Uncertainty over across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, and the deeply transfigurative effect they are expected to have in coming years, Beevers said.

“The Navy, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, they all have their budget challenges. … The Army is feeling the pain, too,” he said.

Nationally, the Guard expects to lose about 15 percent of its budget in fiscal 2014. Last week the Army chief of staff directed all two-star headquarters and above to cut their budgets 25 percent.

The “very, very scary” developments are looming over the next five years, with the Army taking from a projected $18.6 billion annual budget cut to more than $78 billion under full sequestration — “and we absolutely believe that will likely happen,” Beevers said.

“I don’t think we can survive that. It’s not going to be a pretty thing at all,” he said. “The spending reductions are going to be so, so significant that we will be forced to do something, and it’s going to be a huge challenge.”

One option may be to consolidate the National Guard and Army Reserve and place them both under “Title 32” authority, answering to the governor in each state as well as the president, he said.

Another fundamental change will likely be altering the mix of active duty to part-time forces. All are downsizing under current plans pending congressional approval, with the Army losing about 20,000 active-duty soldiers next year, the National Guard and Reserve about 4,000.

Beevers argued for growing the National Guard instead, to capitalize on billions of dollars invested since 2001 in its infrastructure, vehicles, training and other readiness factors.

“I’m not saying that the National Guard can be the be-all, end-all,” but a larger role may be more efficient for the armed forces as active-duty Army end-strength shrinks, he said.

California has the largest, most heavily tasked National Guard force in the country. The state has about 17,000 soldiers and 4,500 airmen, including about 5,000 full-time employees.

Its budget of about $1 billion comes primarily from federal funds. The $43 million from the state is offset by taxes and fees on the federal input, making the Guard essentially “budget neutral” for the state, Beevers said.

“What do the people get for their money? We think it is a pretty good value,” he said.

Nearly 40,000 of the California troops have deployed overseas since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and 26 have been killed in combat.

About 1,240 are serving now in Afghanistan or the Horn of Africa, including half of a special forces company capable of airborne operations.

About 85 members of the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team headquartered in San Diego, the state’s largest and the top rated nationwide in the National Guard, are deployed to Uruzgan province to advise and train Afghan national security forces.

The California National Guard also trains with security forces in Nigeria and Ukraine under the State Partnership Program.

“These folks have deployed over and over and over again,” Beevers said. Some units have spent half of the last 12 years deployed, a rate that rivals any in the active component.

“And we can continue to do that,” he said. “The National Guard is not tired.”

The California National Guard has been under the strain in recent years of financial and mismanagement scandals exposed by The Sacramento Bee, which found tens of millions of dollars in improper recruiting incentives paid to Guard members, as well as “double-dipping” payments to top fighter pilots and former Adjutant Gen. William Wade.

When Adjutant Gen. David Baldwin took over the California Military Department, which includes the National Guard, he fired or reassigned several top leaders. In November, the governor appointed an independent inspector general to oversee the department.

Another challenge for part-time soldiers is juggling military service with civilian careers. California National Guard soldiers and airmen suffer from high unemployment because the whole state does, Beevers said. But he credited a program called Work For Warriors, started as a pilot in July 2012 with a one-time state grant, for filling the job gap.

Many California units returning from deployments have unemployment rates well over 50 percent, and federal programs for them don’t kick in for six months, according to congressional testimony in March from the director of the California National Guard Employment Initiative.

In the first nine months of the state program, 965 out of 2,171 service members asking for help were placed in jobs.

Among other missions, the Guard works with Mexico and U.S. federal agencies to stem the cross-border flow of weapons, drugs and unauthorized immigrants. Its soldiers and airmen are dispatched for civil unrest, ballistic defense, cyberwarfare, floods, earthquakes, nuclear and biological attacks and wildfires.

About a dozen helicopters, along with a couple air tankers, are dropping water and retardant on fires in Northern California and Western states — 45,000 gallons in the 24 hours before Beevers’ talk Wednesday.

The 129th Rescue Wing in the Bay Area is the most decorated in the entire Air Force, Beevers said.

The 40th Combat Aviation Brigade out of Fresno “turned the lights off in the war in Iraq. It was the last combat aviation brigade to be there,” and largest in the Army while in theater, he said.

Also out of Fresno, the 144th Fighter Wing protects national airspace in southwestern states and provides homeland defense for U.S. Northern Command.

“We are not doing that one weekend a month and two weekends in the summer,” he said. Although most of the soldiers and airmen serve part-time, among the California National Guard as a whole “this work goes on every day.”